Dalton Castle with The Boys challenges Bobby Fish for the ROH World Television title during Ring of Honor’s Best in the World pay-per-view on Friday, June 24 at the Cabarrus Arena in Concord, N.C., outside Charlotte. The live broadcast is available on all major pay-per-view carriers, ROHWrestling.com, FITE TV, Playstation Network, and more. Photo By Lee South/Courtesy ROH

Dalton Castle with The Boys challenges Bobby Fish for the ROH World Television title during Ring of Honor’s Best in the World pay-per-view on Friday, June 24 at the Cabarrus Arena in Concord, N.C., outside Charlotte. The live broadcast is available on all major pay-per-view carriers, ROHWrestling.com, FITE TV, Playstation Network, and more. Photo By Lee South/Courtesy ROH

Dalton Castle worthy of spot at ROH Best in the World

Ring of Honor and its fan base bring out the best in Dalton Castle, and because of that, Castle will participate in ROH’s Best in the World pay-per-view at 9 p.m. Friday, June 24 from the Cabarrus Arena in Concord, N.C., outside Charlotte.

Castle with The Boys will challenge Bobby Fish for the ROH World Television title.

Known as the “Party Peacock,” Castle is must-see TV; so it would be fitting to see TV gold fitted nicely around his feathered waist.

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“The peacock itself is where it starts for me,” Castle said. “I look at the peacock as to who I am on the inside. It’s confident. It’s independent. It walks around zoos without being in a cage. You don’t put a peacock in a cage. That doesn’t happen. And it’s full of bright colors, which draws attention to itself. Loud. It’s obnoxious, and it commands the spotlight, and that’s how I see myself.”

Fans are seeing it, too. Castle is a flamboyant persona, capturing their attention. They cheer nearly his every motion and move he eloquently performs in the squared circle.

To expand even further...

“He’s a star,” Castle explained. “He’s a man who thrives on attention and loves wrestling and is going to be the best at it in every way possible.”

Earning star status, Castle developed the character over time.

“Each night got better,” he said. “It was like a snowball. I started doing what you now see on TV on the independent scene -- not the full scale -- but I was doing the entrance, and it was slowly developing, and every night got better. So I knew I was on to something or at least headed in the right direction.”

“I’ve always been Dalton Castle. When I first started wrestling, I was wrestling under that name. I don’t think my ‘how to’ or my physicality has changed. Sure, it’s evolved, and I’ve grown as a wrestler, but I never like sat down and said, ‘I need to make a serious change here.’ I just added things.”

As for his ring attire...

“They are lovely. Aren’t they?” he said. “They’re my vision...I said I need a jumpsuit, and I need a wonderful cape, and it came from there.”

“I honestly can not tell you why,” he said. “I can not think for the fans of Ring of Honor. All I can do is think for myself, and what I think I want to do is be a performer. I want to entertain. It just so happens that I’m lucky enough that the people sitting in the crowd want to be entertained.”

The process organic.

“I didn’t know what road I was going to take [face or heel],” he said. “I didn’t think that far ahead. I was going to go out there and be myself. I was going to do what I was comfortable doing, and the people were either going to accept me, or they were going to be me. It didn’t matter either way, but I’m thankful it went the way it went, but it wasn’t going to dictate how I would act.”

Castle’s background growing up in upstate New York is interesting.

“I’ve always been an athlete, and I’ve always loved theater,” he said. “At the end of my college career as a wrestler, I was graduating with a theater degree, and I didn’t know what to do with the rest of my life.”

A long-time pro wrestling fans with friends in the profession, Castle then made his career choice.

“Fortunately, I’d been around pro wrestling -- at that point over 10 years -- because my friends are wrestlers, and they kind of talked me down that road. ‘Hey idiot, you’re already made for this. I don’t know why you’re not just taking that leap and committing full toward being a pro wrestler.’”

He heard them loud and clear, wrestling in the Northeast for Chikara, Empire State Wrestling, International Wrestling Cartel, and Next Era Wrestling.

While obtaining a degree in paying your dues on the wrestling indies, did having a college degree n theater help in this pro wrestling process?

“It helped big time,” he said. “I know where all the cameras are at every point. I know who I am when I’m in that ring, and there’s never a question of, if I’m making the right decision, because I’ve already made all those answers; I’ve already thought far ahead.”

5 More Minutes

Castle, 30, became an amateur wrestler as a seventh grader in middle school. He continued to progress while at Greece Athena High School (for the Trojans) in Rochester, N.Y. and then took his talents to the collegiate level.

“In high school is where I really learned to love being a wrestler and competing,” he said. “I worked hard it at, and I catered my life toward my wrestling season. I used to play other sports. I was a soccer player, and one year I missed summer wrestling because of an injury I got in soccer. After that, I was like, ‘That’s it. No more other sports. Wrestling is what I love, and I’m not willing to risk missing out on it again.’”

Castle wrestled three years for the NCAA Division III Case Western Reserve University Spartans in Cleveland. He completed his senior year with the NCAA Division III SUNY Cortland Red Dragons in Cortland, N.Y., his home state.

“College...I wanted to go to college, because I didn’t want to stop wrestling.”

His pro wrestling career officially began in 2008, not long after his college graduation.

“I had already been traveling with my friends who were [pro] wrestlers on the independent scene,” he said. “They started when we were 15. So I had been traveling the roads and hanging out in locker-rooms with those guys and accidentally learning the system.”

He learned well.

Castle’s pro wrestling favs: “It changed over the years. When I was little, the Hulkster. I was also drawn to Davey Boy Smith and Bret The Hitman Hart. Then when I grew up, it was Mr. Perfect [Curt Hennig] and Macho Man [Randy Savage]...I go back and watch people now, and I find somebody I like even more.”

It is hard to argue that 2016 has been the Year of the Peacock. After making his debut in New Japan Pro Wrestling at Honor Rising, Dalton Castle vanquished “Pro Wrestling’s Last Real Man” Silas Young in a Fight Without Honor in Las Vegas and is riding one of Ring of Honor’s longest-active winning streaks, recording victories on some of the biggest stages in front of some of the biggest crowds in ROH history.

Arguably his biggest win came in a Four Corners Survival Match at Global Wars. In the bout, Castle emerged victorious over ACH, Adam Page, and “Mr. ROH” Roderick Strong to earn a shot at the ROH World Television Champion at Best in the World. The victory was the kind of win that propels an emerging star into the upper echelon.

Strong did not figure in the decision of the match and believes Castle stole the pinfall. In multi-man matches in Collinsville and Indianapolis, Strong once again fell victim to not figuring in the decision in multi-man matches but made up for it in Columbus. In the Buckeye State, the former Triple Crown Champion scored a rare pinfall victory over Jay Briscoe in their first meeting in more than five years. Strong believes he is the rightful challenger to the ROH World Television Champion.

But who will be the champion the night after Best in the World? Will Castle defeat ROH World Television Champion Bobby Fish live on pay-per-view on Friday, June 24? Will Castle face Strong as champion the night after Strong meets Mark Briscoe? Will the title be on the line?

So many questions to be answered.

Tickets are available.

Click HERE for BITW on Friday, June 24 and HERE for the National TV taping on Saturday, June 25.

ROH pay-per-view’s live broadcast is available on all major pay-per-view carriers, ROHWrestling.com, FITE TV, Playstation Network, and more.